Leg-it must’ve won, but when he turned to make himself scarce, Logan was right behind him.
Mr Hairy flinched so hard his wee feet left the ground fora second, his heart-shaped balloon escaping from his startled hand. He spun around, scrambling for the string, but the Mylar Gods must’ve been smiling on him today, because the balloon wafted in under the bus shelter’s canopy. So instead of floating off into the great blue yonder, it was trapped beneath the Perspex roof. Bobbing there, as if it was beating.
PC Kent reached out and caught hold of the string.
Catastrophe averted.
Logan thumped a hand down on Mr Hairy’s shoulder, making him flinch again. ‘I think we need to talk.’
11
There was a fly, trapped somewhere inside the Mobile Command Unit, buzzing away. Banging its head against the van’s walls.
Which pretty much summed up Logan’s day so far.
A bulkhead separated the driver and passenger seats from the rest of the vehicle, meaning the only natural light in this bit came through a frosted skylight. Because ‘no windows’ meant the paparazzi couldn’t stick their lenses against the glass, hoping for a juicy shot to sell to the tabloids. And even heavily tinted glazing was transparent if the buggers had a flash bright enough.
A fold-down table took up a big chunk of space, flanked by a pair of manky office chairs, beneath a triptych of wall-mounted whiteboards – bearing various diagrams of the crime scene in shonky marker pen. To add a touch of four-star luxury, someone had installed a teeny section of worktop, with a cupboard underneath, and a battered kettle the colour of smokers’ teeth.
Mr Hairy sat at the table, hunched into himself, as if he was scared to touch anything. Fidgeting with his forecourt flowers as the sweat-bitter scents of beer and fruit oozed out of him.
Logan had the other chair, sitting directly across from Mr Hairy while PC Kent loomed. Mind you, she was still holding that heart-shaped mylar balloon, bobbing away on the end of its string, which rather undermined the sense of menace...
‘I see.’ Logan stretched back in his seat. ‘And is there a reason you don’t want to give us your name?’
Mr Hairy didn’t look up from his flowers. ‘Am I under arrest?’
‘Shouldyou be?’
The bouquet’s lone chrysanthemum lost a petal to those jittery fingers. ‘I don’t have to give you my name or anything else unless you inform me why I’m being detained and questioned.’
‘We’re notdetainingyou, Mr...?’
Silence.
Apparently Mr Hairy wasn’t falling for that one.
OK. Logan made a show of looking around the grubby, cramped, faux office. ‘We invited you into our nice cool Mobile Command Unit for a chat. And you accepted our invitation.’ Reassuring smile. ‘My colleague was just a little concerned about your wellbeing. What with you hanging around amurder scene, in the blazing sun all day. Wanted to make sure you were OK.’
The fly buzzed.
The jolly red balloon swayed.
The chrysanthemum suffered: pluck, pluck, pluck.
Mr Hairy scrunched one shoulder. ‘It’s...difficult, OK?’
Logan let the silence stretch, and grow, and fester into something truly uncomfortable.
Until Mr Hairy couldn’t take it any longer. ‘I mean, I read the papers, yeah? I stayinformedabout stuff.’ He looked up from his tormented flower. ‘We’re such a small country, but they keep cramming more and more people in. Health service is fucked, transport’s fucked, council’s fucked...You try getting a dentist’s appointment, or a decent job!There’s – no – more – room.’ He sat forward. ‘I’m not saying it’s OK to burn them out, but...something, yeah?’ Pointing towards the hotel. ‘But not...I mean,there werekidsin there. Kids!’ Then went back to torturing that poor chrysanthemum. ‘You don’tdoshit like that.’
‘Do you know something about the fire? Or who set it?’
‘I know they burned kids.’ Mr Hairy poked the table. ‘How cananyonedo that and pretend they’re not monsters? Should string them up.’
Logan tipped his head to one side, like a curious cat regarding a bird. ‘So, why were you hanging about all day?’
‘Wasn’t. Came out to look. Went off to the pub for a bit. Came back. Had a bit of a think. Bought some flowers and a balloon...’ Another couple of petals fluttered to the van’s floor. ‘They keep telling us we’ve got to take more and more people.’ Pick. Pick. Pick. ‘But they werekids...’
